These past few months, we've been noticing efforts from Facebook to mix things up on mobile devices a little bit, like revealing Paper back in January, or the recent action to place a greater focus on Messenger. Today we learn of Facebook's new plan to help smartphone users connect with their friends by leveraging the location data our phones generate, with its announcement of a feature it's calling Nearby Friends. With Nearby Friends activated, the Facebook app on your phone will give you a heads-up when your pals are in the same vicinity as you, letting you make plans to meet up, should ...

When an avalanche of reviews is rumbling its way down your mountain, it's rarely easy to assemble a podcast team – but as we frequently remind you, the Pocketnow Weekly has never missed a week, and we'll be damned if it'll do so now. So despite the forthcoming reviews of the Samsung Galaxy S 5, Gear Fit, Gear 2, Oppo Find 7a, Nokia X, and the just-completed reviews of the ZENS Qi line, BlackBerry 10.2.1, and the Verizon HTC One M8, we're banding together behind microphones in three separate cities on two continents to bring you the news and editorials of a very busy week in mobile. ...

So far, Facebook's given smartphone users two primary ways to access instant messages sent over its service: you could either receive and respond to messages from directly within the core Facebook app, or you could fire up Facebook Messenger for a pure messaging experience. Apparently that's all about to change, however, and The Verge has just confirmed with Facebook that an effort is in the works to move all IM traffic over to Facebook Messenger. You'll still be able to see messages in the main Facebook app, but tapping on one of those messages to start interacting with it will instead ...

Watch today's Pocketnow Daily as we talk about Nokia and how it's made its Refocus application available to all the Lumias that matter, and we also go through the rumors of the Nokia Martini becoming the Lumia 930. Then we talk about how Huawei plans to give us an Android-Windows Phone dual smartphone by Q2/2014. Samsung is next as we get more leaks of what to expect from its S Band, and also what to expect about a premium Galaxy S5. We later go through some of the new iWatch rumors, and specifically the pedometer patent. We end today's show talking about the new Facebook video ads that ...

Users of free apps and the developers behind them often find themselves in a battle of the wills over advertising. We realize that you don't get something for nothing, and in order to keep enjoying free apps and the services behind them, we're going to have to put up with some ads. The companies financing these apps also want to maximize their income, so they're going to present us with as many ads as we'll stand; too many, or too invasive, and we'll just stop using using the app. After testing the waters for the past few months, today Facebook goes official with its latest effort to bring ...

I can understand why you would want a separate Facebook Messenger app on Apple's iOS or Android. You might want a separate app so that you can launch directly into the messenger and see all of your chat conversations right away. iOS and Android don't really support multiple entry points for the same app. Windows Phone is different though. I already have a Facebook messages tile pinned to my start screen and tapping that will go directly to my Facebook messages. So what's the point of another app that does exactly the same thing as a live tile from an app that I already have? ...

When we're talking about Facebook and messaging acquisitions, Snapchat is the name that first comes to mind, following the much-publicized news last fall that Snapchat turned down a $3B offer from the social network. Since then we've been wondering in the back of our minds if Facebook might take another stab at buying the company, or at least go after some of its competition. Tonight we get news that Facebook has indeed gone ahead with plans to purchase a smartphone messaging service, but it's not Snapchat this time around; instead, Facebook has announced an arrangement that will see it ...

Probably one of the most confusing parts of Facebook's launch of Paper is precisely the fact that there already is an app called Paper. If you hadn't heard about FiftyThree's award winning sketch application for the iPad, we suggest you have a look. Lot's of speculation surged from Facebook's app launch, since many assumed that Facebook had purchased FiftyThree, but that wasn't the case. Today FiftyThree's CEO Georg Petschnigg published an open and very polite letter expressing that "Facebook can apply the same degree of thought they put into the app into building a brand name of their ...

Watch today's Pocketnow Daily as we talk about Facebook Paper, and how it plans to revolutionize the way you interact with the social network. Google is next as we go through its quarter results and learn why it sold Motorola, aside from other rumors of the color-options for the Google Nexus 5. Then we talk about the Galaxy S 5, and new rumors claiming that the phone will include a fingerprint scanner. Microsoft is next as reports have the company naming a CEO next week. We end today's show talking about Apple's plans for the iPhone 6 with its new sapphire glass facility in Arizona. All ...

Facebook has been rumored to release its own news application, and the social network did exactly that. The app is called Facebook Paper, and it will be available on the iPhone starting February 3, which is next Monday. There's no word on an Android client, at least not for now, and not in the initial press release. While you can better understand what Paper is by checking out the video below, expect it to bring you news, as well as information from your friends, in what appears to be a beautifully designed application. Structured in stories and sections, Paper will contain your News Feed ...

The Federal Communications Commission (FCC) is the regulatory body that oversees the Internet in these United States. Some times it does a good job, and sometimes it doesn't. Most of the time it depends on which side of the debate you're on. Nonetheless, there is a "Right" on the Internet that most tech writers and Internet surfers around the world will probably agree on: Net Neutrality. Around the globe, regardless of what continent you're on, what country you're in, or what language you speak, the Internet is the same. How you get there, how fast your connection speed it, how much it ...

What are you looking forward to in 2014? Upgrading to a new phone? Sure; who wouldn't be? And with plenty of high-profile models expected, it's shaping up to be a year full of solid options. You can expect to see handsets running faster than ever before, offering better camera quality than you've ever seen on a phone, and introducing screens with more pixels than your living room HDTV. And while maybe not anything worth getting excited about to nearly the same extent, you can probably also look forward to the year bringing numerous improvements to wireless service. Again, nothing ...

Plenty of smartphone users are familiar with getting their phones for “free,” paying nothing out-of-pocket and seeing those costs subsidized by their wireless carrier. We also enjoy access to tons of free apps, with the cost of development often offset by advertising. But the one aspect of our mobile lives that has so far eluded this sort of funding structure has been our wireless data itself. Sure, there have been attempts to help users out with bills by delivering things like lock screen ads, but today we're seeing two companies take things a little farther, as Facebook teams up with ...

Oh, Facebook Home: you arrived with a bang, you were interesting, different, and experimental... and then we utterly lost interest. You basically killed the otherwise promising HTC First. Suffice it to say, the vast majority of us gave up on you a long time ago. Well, while we moved back to our stand-alone Facebook apps, the company's been working on breathing some new life into Home, and following some beta testing last month, has a new version of Facebook Home ready to install, bringing with it a few changes to its layout. The overarching theme of these changes seems to be keeping ...

Over the last few weeks, a new version of Facebook Messenger has been rolling out to users on both iOS and Android. As we mentioned when bringing you news of its release, Facebook really committed to overhauling the app, and what we ended up getting offered a new, cleaner look. It seems that may have just been the first volley, and a new leak reveals that this new look is spreading, and should soon be coming to the full Android Facebook app. Unfortunately, there's no easy way to check this out for yourself just yet; though an APK of this release is available (and you'll find it through the ...

Facebook is one of the most popular social networks in the entire world, but in today's fast-paced environment, resting on one's laurels is probably the best way to get passed up and pushed into the realm of irrelevance. The only viable strategy to survive? Innovate -- or die. Facebook has been doing just that: taking risks and pushing the envelope. One of its recent strategies was pushing notifications to the front with chat heads. Facebook's chat heads let you quickly read and reply to messages while you're using other apps through a floating notification that includes a picture of your ...

A couple of weeks ago Facebook started rolling out a brand new Messenger application to select users; the revamped app brings a couple of features in addition to a new, fresh, and cleaner look. Now this latest Facebook Messenger application can be downloaded by more people on Android and iOS, from the Google Play Store, and iTunes, respectively. Follow the source links below to grab it. Functionality and ease of use are the main features Facebook brought to the new Messenger app, in addition to the cleaner look, as well as the ability to enter (or confirm) your mobile number so that you ...

Our smartphones are fantastic little gadgets when they're answering our questions, helping us with directions, or just keeping us connected with the world, but there's little more frustrating than when they just stop working, for no apparent rhyme nor reason. If you're a Windows Phone 8 user, you might have noticed your handset spitting out error messages at you today, complaining about connection problems with Facebook. This has been going on for hours now, and if you find yourself in this boat, you'll be glad to know both that you're not alone, and that a fix is currently being ...

Facebook recently announced that it will start rolling out a test update to certain users for the Messenger application. This new test refresh will bring a "faster and more reliable mobile-to-mobile messaging experience", since it is Facebook's belief that "more and more people use Facebook to connect with their friends on mobile". First of all, it will look completely different, as you can see in the image above, where the app is running on an HTC One mini. There will be status badges next to user names informing you whether your friends are using the mobile app or not (something which is ...

I'm sure that most of us will admit we completely forgot about Facebook Home. Yes, it is a cool launcher that makes your experience with your device more personal, but still, having your world revolve around Facebook isn't necessarily good. Specially when all you get are invites to Candy Crush. Still, the social media giant keeps working on improving the service, even if their phone venture with HTC flopped very badly. A new update that's being pushed today allows users to not just have to revolve around Facebook. It allows you to set services like Instagram, Tumblr, Flickr, and Pinterest ...

As Windows 8.1 becomes public, lots of apps are expected to either surge or update within the next couple of days. One of these is a new and official Facebook App, which plans to offer you a more immersive experience with the social network, even if all the invitations to Candy Crush will do an opposite job in making you want to leave. Among the enhancements that this app brings: Your friends are always at your side, even when you’re using other apps See what your friends are up to Get notified when friends like and comment on your posts Get updates on your Start screen Share ...

If you have a Windows Phone 7 and you've always wanted the Facebook app that Windows Phone 8 users are now using, you can do it, as of today, thanks to Microsoft. The company has updated its Facebook Beta application to add support for Windows Phone 7. Grab it at the source below. If you're on Windows Phone 8 and are already using the Beta, make sure to update your client as the new version brings "performance improvements and bug fixes". It is visibly faster than the previous version, though not as fast as we'd like it to be. Source: Windows Phone Store

If you are a heavy Facebook user and your platform of choice is Windows Phone 8 you have probably checked out the Beta Facebook application which was available over the past couple of months. Now Facebook for Windows Phone 8 has been updated with a final version of the Beta as it becomes Gold. Facebook 5.0 is a completely new application. Among others, it brings "a complete overhaul of the user interface, improved navigation, support for high-res pictures, post sharing, and Facebook Timeline view". If you want to stay up to date with every minor (or major) change, you can still use the ...

Back in April, we heard about Microsoft's interest in recruiting some Windows Phone users to help the company beta test the latest changes to its own Facebook app. Today, we get news of something similar going on, but this time involving Android and the Facebook app developed by the company itself. Facebook wants to attract Android users interested in helping the company test our its latest beta builds. While the project will be open to the public, you're still going to have to sign up to get involved – this isn't as casual as just downloading a beta app from the Play Store. Full ...

It's almost hard to believe how quickly Facebook Home – and the HTC First along with it – grabbed the spotlight before almost immediately fading away. Sure, it was risky project that didn't quite deliver in the ways we were hoping, but it was still a big deal to see a company releasing software like this, and it got us wondering who else might cook up a Facebook Home of their own. Now that the dust has settled, it seems a lot less likely that anyone might be interested in following in Facebook's footsteps. Some new survey data spells out just how little interest the smartphone-using ...